Friends of Chitambo SCIO: registered charity number SCO44337
Our primary aims are to support health projects, including the hospital, ambulance and nurse training school. However, we also hope to be able to provide some support to other community oranisations such as the orphanage, schools, and the church, where possible.

Monday, 14 August 2017

Friends of Chitambo Trustee, Margaret, posted this article in the Penicuk newsletter, the Town Crier:

" Friends of Chitanbo are having a stall at the (Penicuik, Scotland) Street Fair on 26th August. We continue to support the hospital and surrounding area in Zambia. Five professionals, members of Friends, are going to meet Zambian partners and work with them training ambulance drivers in first aid. They will see the progress made with the 'mini NHS24' (emergency response) service for which we received a grant from Holyrood. This is a very necessary service for outlying clinics of which one is 125 miles from the hospital."
Well said Ba Margaret. As a retired teacher, your writing skills shine through. Natotela sana mukwai (thank you) for your ongoing support.

Thursday, 10 August 2017

Due to the miracle of technology, news has been reaching us, here in Scotland, of the traditional Chitambo hospitality offered to 2 'old' friends, Ron and Andrew Swanson. Their Dad, Ron Swanson Senior, built the original student nurse hostel at Chitambo, which is still in use today. Ron and Andrew lived at Chitambo as children.

They have just returned from a historic revisit and have been beaming back pictures and video clips of the tumultuous welcome which only Chitambo people could give.

In Ron's words, it was 'a very special, humbling and inspiring' experience and they particularly enjoyed the church service and meeting the only surviving person who had worked with their Dad.

Twatotela saana mukwai (thank you very much) to all at Chitambo for looking after Ron and Andrew so well.

It's that time again and luckily we have all hands on deck to help with this annual fundraising event which takes place just a few days before some FoCH members travel to Zambia for the project monitoring and evaluation visit and First Aid workshop.

A very big thank you to the following local Penicuik businesses for their generous donations of raffle prizes for this and previous events:

Enhance Beauty: http://www.enhance-beauty.co.uk/

The Best Seller: https://www.yell.com/biz/the-best-seller-penicuik-3916534/

Thank you, too, to FoCH Trustees Margaret and Gillian for negotiating these donations with the local shopkeepers and to all FoCH members and wider friends who are also helping with donations of goods, items, baking, and their precious time.

You are all making a real difference on the ground at Chitambo.

Chola and Loveness are staunch supporters but are too far away to contribute directly. However, they are planning a stall for this year's Zambian Independence Celebrations in the Midlands. They are even thinking of designing a FoCH banner of their own, for local use.

Last year the couple raised a whopping £300 on their stall and this went to purchasing 5 solar lights for use at remote Rural Health Clinics. As nurses with extensive experience of the pressures of running remote Zambian health clinics, they know how important it is to have access to electricity. On a recent visit to Chitambo District, they witnessed that nurses were having to sue the light of mobile phones to deliver babies.

Thank you to Chola and Loveness for your dedication to helping Chola's home community of Chitambo. You too are making a huge difference.

News just in from the Zambian Flying Doctor Service (ZFDS) is that the 4 Motorola Very High Frequency (VHF) radios which FoCH purchased with Scottish Government funds and private donations have arrived from South Africa. They are for Chitambo Hospital and 3 'hardest to reach' Rural Health Clinics (RHC) and will be installed during the the week beginning 14th August 2017.

These clinics, in the remote Bangwelu Swamps area..incidentally the area where Scottish 'hero' David Livingstone died...have no mobile phone or internet connectivity and multiple delays in contacting Chitambo Hospital can cost lives.

During the September monitoring and evaluation visit, the project team hopes to be able to assess how these radios are bedding down and what difference they are making.

Friends of Chitambo (FoCH) is, in communication with local health leads, also sponsoring an emergency shortcode for health. This will give all Chitambo District citizens and others free mobile phone access to emergency help and advice.

Purchasing a 4-digit number for 1 year costs in the region of £3,000 and FoCH will do this with a very generous donation from the Twigger family in America, who have also contributed to emergency radio purchases.

Purchasing the 4-digit shortcode number is an interim measure until the Zambian Ministry of Health and mobile phone providers manage to launch the free national shortcode number, 992. Delays are due to needing to include all emergency services (ambulance, fire, and police), some of which are under-developed and will take time to prepare for inclusion in this initiative.

Please see our online donations button if you can help with this life-saving work

In September 2017, a UK delegation will join Zambian partners on a visit to Chitambo for the purposes of monitoring and evaluating the emergency are project and contributing to delivery of a unique First Aid course to Chitambo District ambulance drivers and other front line emergency care staff.

Levi, a Senior Nurse Lecturer in Central Province, Zambia, is leading this course. Levi has extensive experience as Charge Nurse and Senior Lecturer at Chitambo and he has long stated the need to train the 5 local ambulance drivers in basic First Aid.

These drivers are highly experienced and dedicated to helping local people in case of emergency. However, some First Aid training will really save lives by enabling them to respond more efficiently and effectively to emergencies such as bleeding in pregnancy, road traffic accidents, burns, choking, snake bites etc.

This is vital in this vast rural area where distances are great, roads bad, and multiple delays in reaching hospital cost lives.

Thank you to Levi for this great work. He has enlisted the help of a local surgeon to deliver the trauma aspects of the course. Click here to see the programme

Alison, a young Scottish Nurse Lecturer is accompanying the delegation to Chitambo and, as a trained First Aid trainer she will contribute, with other course facilitators, to delivery of the programme. Although she is well traveled, this will be her first time in Africa.

Friends of Chitambo (FoCH) contributes to ambulance maintenance.

Please see our on line donations button if you think you can help with this life-saving aspect.

Whilst in Europe, Consider, In-country Project Coordinator for our Scottish Government sponsored Small Grant project on 'Strengthening emergency care communications in Chitambo District, Central Zambia', presented the following poster at the ICLM conference in Dublin, Ireland:Click here for the poster

Consider applied to attend this conference whilst presenting a previous poster, on behalf of the project, at the Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA) conference in Uganda in 2016. His abstract, produced in record time to an impossible deadline, was accepted and the project enabled him to not only to disseminate important project information at the conference but also extend his own personal experience in rich and fulfilling ways.

The conference theme was 'Diversity in Practice' and there was much interest in Consider's poster. He networked widely, including with 2 other Zambian delegates, and remains in touch with medical librarians and information scientists around the world.

Enjoying a glass of Guinness in Dublin

Back in Scotland, Consider also paid a visit to Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, where he is studying for a distance Masters in Strategic Planning. Here he met fellow Zambians students who were attending for their graduation ceremony. What a great incentive for Consider.

June was a very busy month for Friends of Chitambo (FoCH), with visits to the UK and Ireland by 2 African partners, Consider and Blessing. This was in relation to our Scottish Government sponsored project on 'Strengthening emergency communications in Chitambo District'. In April 2017, we received a second round of funding for this work and are forging ahead with related developments.

Whilst in Europe, Blessing, who is Knowledge Broker Development Manager for the project, worked with NHSScotland Knowledge colleagues on developing the Knowledge Broker role. Knowledge Brokers are library and information scientist who help health staff to translate (access and use) vital information into action at the frontline.

Consider, who is In-country Project Coordinator, complemented the Knowledge Broker work by downloading 5 apps/pdfs to 3 new Lenovo Yoga tablet pcs purchased for teh project. These are for use at Chitambo's 3 'hardest to reach' Rural Health Clinics (RHC), where there is no mobile phone or internet connectivity. The downloads include:

The books will be carried to Zambia in September 2017 when a UK delegation travels to Chitambo for the purposes of project monitoring/evaluation and a 3-day First Aid Workshop for ambulance drivers and front line emergency care staff, which is being organised by Chitambo partner, Levi, a Senior Nurse Lecturer.

Despite the busy Scottish visit schedule, there was some time for soem socialising and FoCH Trustees Chola and Loveness paid a visit to Penicuik, Scotland, to meet up with Consider. Chola and Loveness are nurses in the Midlands of England. However, Chola is a Lala gentleman, and is from Chitambo. This makes him a real asset to FoCH as he has close contacts on the ground at Chitambo and can advise on all local matters.

Here's an extract from a letter from one of 'our' Scholarship students:

Chitambo School of Nursing April 2017

How I knew about Friends of Chitambo and how I have benefited
I came to know about the Friends of Chitambo and the scholarships they offer through our group tutor. I am half orphan. My father is dead and we are being looked after by Mum who is a full time housewife. I have challenges paying my school fees because the money Dad left is not enough to sustain I and my siblings. So at one time my mother was called to school because of the financial situation I was having and upon hearing her cries my group tutor decided that I be included in the scholarship that Friends of Chitambo was offering.The sponsorship has really relieved me of the anguish of paying school fees. It was quite demoralising every semester when time for paying school fees was mentioned. At one time I even thought of stopping school because I thought I was going nowhere. But thanks be to God through the Friends of Chitambo who came to my rescue. Now I see a light at the end of the tunnel, Thank you Friends of Chitambo for giving me hope. It's my prayer that you may do for others what you have done for me. AMEN.Bwalya

Friends of Chitambo supports 2 student nurses through their 3-year Registered Nurse training at any one time. Bwalya and Mary,the other student we are currently supporting, are in their final year. We are in discussion with Chitambo colleagues about selecting a further 2 students once they graduate in 2018.

Training a student nurse costs around 21,000 Zambian Kwachas (£1,213) in total for the 3 year training (around £400/year), although this changes from year to year as costs increase.

See our online donation button on this blog if you think you can help.

Friday, 9 June 2017

FoCH Chair, Jo, almost deleted the email thinking it was junk! What a mistake that would have been! It was the offer of another very substantial donation, from Mr. Bill Twigger, American penfriend of Jo's father, Dr. Hamilton Currie, who was doctor at Chitambo during the 1960s and 70s.

More correctly, the offer was from Bill's daughter, Nancy, a community pharmacist in Arizona, USA. Sadly, Bill passed away in January 2017, aged 96. Please see his obituary here: Click here

Mr. Bill Twigger

Bill, wife June and daughter Nancy

Bill, a former Customs Broker in Pennsylvania, USA, had contacted Jo and her sisters some years ago, by email. Again, they were a bit suspicious but soon realised the contact was entirely genuine! Here are some extracts from Bill's letter to them titled, My Story:"Dear (Girls),

Where shall I begin? To say "I was born" would risk plagiarizing the great Charles Dickens. Yet, born I was, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on March 25, 1920 into a family poor in the exchequer but rich in the stuff of life. About the time of any measurable accountability, we three children (myself and my two younger sisters, Mabel and Jane), along with our dear mother, managed to survive the Great Depression. We grew up with little of this world's goods, but managed to keep body and soul together.

In 1936 (my senior year of high school) my English literature teacher asked me if I would be interested in engaging in correspondence with a Scottish school student my age. The novelty appealed to me instantly. She gave me the name and address of one HAMILTON CURRIE. As academic -- and other "growing-up" -- responsibilities allowed, we engaged a healthy exchange of letters and photographs which resulted in the establishment of a friendship which rivals any I developed with people with whom I had daily eyeball-to-eyeball contact........

I'll bring this epistle to a close by telling you that, in the not-too-distant future, you will receive an envelope containing some photographs and other trappings from my years of correspondence with your very special father and my dear friend. With intentional irreverence, I now hereby declare that Hamilton Currie will be among the first "people" I'll be seeking on that blessed day when my Lord and Master calls me home to Glory.Cordially yours,Bill Twigger"

The envelope duly arrived, to Jo's delight. Sadly, the sisters later lost touch with Bill. However, he had not forgotten them. The reason his daughter, Nancy, contacted Jo was to say that her Dad had left a note specifying a wish to make a large donation to Friends of Chitambo, in memory of his penpal:

"Because I have wanted (ever since his untimely death) to make a substantial gift to the African (Zambian) enterprise which my pen-pal Milton Currie directed for 25 years, I want you to send a bank draft in the amount of 5000 Pounds Sterling (about $3700) to Jo Vallis. Ask her to arrange the purchase of some piece of equipment which the hospital at Chitambo is in need of."

Nancy Twigger agreed that much needed emergency radios would meet Bill's equipment wish and matched her father's very generous donation with one of her own. This was enough to buy 2 Motorola Very High Frequency (VHF) Digital Radios for Chitambo District. These will make a vast difference in an area where distances and lack of communications cost lives, especially of women in childbirth.

What a Godsend!

A heartfelt thanks to the Twiggers. A kinder family you could not find anywhere on this earth.

Twatotela saana mukwai (THANK YOU in ChiBemba, the language of Chitambo District)